College Football Championships with A Plus-One: The 1998 Season
Among my earliest memories of college football is in 1991 when undefeated juggernauts in Miami and Washington split the national championship. Years later, this shared title became the quintessential example cited for the sport’s need to evolve its postseason and crown a “real” champion.
Indeed, a matchup between one of the last great teams from the original Miami dynasty and the best of legendary Don James’ Washington teams remains among the game’s great What Ifs.
Miami-Washington may not have been the reason college football adopted the Bowl Coalition, which later became the Bowl Alliance before ultimately spawning into the Bowl Championship Series. The BCS promised to avoid situations like the split 1991 title, and for that pursuit, fulfilled its purpose.
However, a whole host of other problems arose.
Twenty years after the Huskies and Hurricanes, the system ostensibly designed to crown a “real” champion reached an untenable point. Flaws in the BCS were evident from its first season, but the dismal Alabama-LSU rematch to cap the 2011 season struck a blow that started the gears shifting toward the College Football Playoff.
We’re now through eight seasons of the Playoff and…well, it’s bad enough that a not unsubstantial portion of college football fandom is asking for the BCS to make a return.
Each change made in the pursuit of crowning a champion moves the sport away from its tradition. For a game that owes a considerable portion of its popularity to tradition, these decisions are myopic and could be detrimental to college football in the long run.
No postseason solution will ever fulfill the expressed purpose of crowning a champion while also adhering to the traditions and regionalism that give college football its identity. The closest suggestion that would mostly satisfy all parties is a plus-one.
Essentially, the top two teams after all the traditional bowl games play on the first Saturday after New Year’s Day (allowing for at least a week between). While there would be seasons in which a worthy No. 3 might have claim to the title game spot, a plus-one would have delivered on Colorado vs. Georgia Tech, Miami vs. Washington, Michigan vs. Nebraska in the 1990s, and addressed most of the championship controversies of the Bowl Championship Series era.
I envisioned the Playoff era with the semifinal format scrapped for a plus-one over Patreon, but that was more of a general snapshot than deep dive. In the coming weeks, The Press Break will go in-depth on each season of the BCS era to demonstrate how a plus-one could have preserved the sport’s traditions, opened opportunities to outsiders who were denied, and crown a more satisfying national champion.
The following are the bowls that will appear in some capacity over the course of this project, with their respective tie-ins. Not all of these factor in every year; some seasons are as simple as two games to determine a championship plus-one.
Rose Bowl: Pac-10/12 champion vs. Big Ten champion
Sugar Bowl: SEC champion vs. At-large
Orange Bowl: ACC/Big East/Big 12/Notre Dame/SEC
Cotton Bowl: Big 12 vs. SEC/At-large
Fiesta Bowl: At-large vs. At-large
Peach Bowl: SEC vs. ACC
Citrus Bowl: SEC vs. Big Ten
Holiday Bowl: Pac-10/12 runner-up vs. Big 12
Alamo Bowl: Big 12 vs. Big Ten
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To reiterate, the first season of the BCS immediately revealed considerable flaws. Some of the more nagging controversies that persisted over its 15-year life didn’t come to a head until later, only because a few breaks went in favor of the BCS.
Most notably, the sole power-conference undefeated team going into the postseason, Tennessee, won the BCS Championship Game.
The Vols emerged from one of the most chaotic and consequential single days1 in college football history unscathed, but the BCS came perilously close to being invalidated before ever hosting a game.
Had UCLA beaten Miami and Kansas State won the Big 12 Championship Game, we’d have gone into the first BCS postseason with three undefeated power-conference champions. Then, had Florida State beaten Tennessee in the Fiesta Bowl, the campaign would have concluded with a logjam of one-loss teams — including Ohio State, which was locked out of the BCS amid a wildly controversial finish atop the Big Ten.
The BCS delayed the inevitable in ‘98, which is sort of a shame: That’s one of the most wild seasons in my time following college football, as my proposed format demonstrates with a crowded title picture.
ROSE BOWL: No. 9 Wisconsin vs. No. 6 UCLA
UCLA went into the final week of the 1998 regular season in the driver’s seat for an inaugural BCS Championship Game berth. However, an early-season non-conference game at Miami pushed back to December’s first weekend ended the Bruins’ title hopes.
Ironically, national media began planting seeds rallying against UCLA’s BCS case upon the initial cancelation of its trip to Miami, the result of Hurricane Georges. Popular sentiment in the first year of the BCS was that playing a tough schedule was more important than going undefeated, which, LMAO.
Perhaps without the suggestion it needed to bolster its resume, UCLA skips the Miami and goes into Rose Bowl undefeated. For the sake of this exercise, however, we’ll maintain the Bruins’ loss to The U and slot them at No. 6.
The climb from sixth to one of the top two spots and a National Championship Game is arduous, but not impossible. Wisconsin came into the Rose Bowl also sporting just one loss, but the Badgers played a weak schedule lacking Ohio State in conference play.
Wisconsin playing its way into the plus-one title game would require a ton of breaks: Routing UCLA, Ohio State losing a lopsided bowl game, perhaps K-State eeking out a bowl win so that the Badgers have the argument of a conference championship.
SUGAR BOWL: No. 1 Tennessee vs. No. 4 Ohio State
It’s somewhat ironic now, given how much it sure seems like the college football punditry pushes for the Buckeyes to receive championship opportunities it may or may not deserve2, but in ‘98, there was an Ohio State squad with a legit gripe about being excluded from the title game.
Ohio State went into the 1998 season ranked No. 1, occupied the top spot for much of the regular season, split the Big Ten title with Wisconsin and…did not appear in a BCS bowl.
Andy Katzenmoyer gracing the cover of the preseason Sports Illustrated is etched in my memory, as that article was among a select few I read as a kid that made me want to pursue sports journalism.
Ohio State lost once in the regular season to a .500 Michigan State team, which allowed Wisconsin to jump the Buckeyes for the Rose Bowl bid by virtue of having a stronger defeat. The Badgers fell to a top 20 Michigan.
In hindsight, the Sparty loss doesn’t look so bad, given the greatest coach in college football history was on the Michigan State sideline. For the sake of a plus-one, Ohio State would have benefited from not going to the Rose Bowl, though, as it would allow for a matchup with undefeated Tennessee.
The Tee Martin-quarterbacked Vols set a benchmark that Tennessee continues to chase in futility 23 years later. An interesting thought experiment asks how the future of Vol football might have looked had Phil Fulmer not claimed a national championship.
Perhaps he still does in a plus-one format, but it’s arguable Tennessee avoided the nation’s strongest all-around team that season.
ORANGE BOWL: No. 2 Florida State vs. No. 3 Kansas State
No program benefited more from the chaos of Dec. 5 than Florida State. The Seminoles lost to NC State early in the season, establishing the precedent that persists today suggesting its better for a team’s championship aspirations to take an L in September than in November.
After dropping that shockingly lopsided decision, Florida State went unbeaten the rest of the way to the BCS Championship Game. Although the Seminoles’ cachet built up in Bobby Bowden’s tenure helped, they weren’t undeserving: Florida State beat several ranked teams along the way, including a Florida bunch that was very much in the national title mix at season’s end.
This version of FSU was more vulnerable than Bowden’s championship winners in ‘93 and ‘99, however. Chris Weinke had not taken the step to being one of the nation’s best quarterbacks as he would by the time he was finished in Tallahassee.
The idea of Kansas State pulling this Noles team into a shootout is exciting. Michael Bishop was arguably the best power-conference quarterback in the country as the Wildcats piled up points.
Had K-State not lost an incredible Big 12 Championship Game to Texas A&M3, Bill Snyder would have had the chance to cement his place among the sport’s all-time greats with a national championship.
In that same vein, though, brings up an interesting question: Would a one-loss team that failed to win its conference deserve to ascend to the National Championship Game? K-State finished the regular season with impressive wins over Texas (by 41 points!), Nebraska and Missouri, all of which were ranked in the Top 25, thus making for a more impressive resume than other one-loss contenders like Wisconsin or Ohio State.
But with both the Buckeyes and Badgers splitting the Big Ten title, UCLA carrying one loss, a Pac-10 championship and its own win over nationally ranked Texas, the Wildcats would not be so clearly positioned as win-and-in.
COTTON BOWL: No. 8 Texas A&M vs. No. 10 Tulane
BCS inequities against non-power conference programs did not start to gain traction until the next season when Marshall — very recently prior a Div. I-AA powerhouse that immediately made waves upon moving to the MAC — commanded national attention.
It took another five years after the ‘99 Thundering Herd for a non-BCS conference program to finally crack the BCS, with Utah given a borderline insulting invite to play a weak Pitt team in the Fiesta Bowl.
Really though, it started from the jump with Tulane.
The Green Wave finished the season undefeated and ranked in the top 10 behind the nation’s most exciting quarterback, Shaun King. King was the first quarterback to bring Rich Rodriguez’s vision for modern offense to life at the highest level. I contend to this day King not being a Heisman finalist was a travesty.
If you’re interested on more regarding ‘98 Tulane, check out this newsletter from October.
Anyway, Tulane was snubbed for an at-large bid and played unranked BYU in the Liberty Bowl, which the Green Wave won handily. That matchup was oddly poetic, as I suspect BYU’s national championship in 1984 got the wheels in motion for a postseason system that locked out non-power conference programs.
The BCS certainly felt designed to deny the nation matchups like a Top 10 Tulane against one of the power brokers. Let’s rectify that here and send the Green Wave to the Cotton Bowl to face Big 12 champ Texas A&M.
The Aggies played a brutal non-conference schedule that included national championship contender Florida State — again, people deluded themselves into believing the BCS would reward scheduling up. A&M was out of the national title mix, but its involvement in a plus-one system could have made an impact.
K-State would certainly be rooting for an Aggies win to improve the strength of that Big 12 Championship loss. Tulane picking up a top eight victory and closing out with one of only two perfect records, meanwhile, would have built a compelling case for the Green Wave to advance.
HOLIDAY BOWL: No. 5 Arizona vs. No. 14 Nebraska
The last team of Arizona’s Desert Swarm era was also its best. UA had better defensive teams than the ‘98 bunch — even with the latter boasting Chris McAlister4 — namely ‘93. That unit with Tedy Bruschi and Rob Waldrop on the defensive line ranks among the most imposing defenses in college football history.
However, the 1998 Wildcats combined defensive prowess with what was easily the best offense in Dick Tomey’s tenure, thanks to Dino Babers’ forward-thinking as coordinator.
UCLA fans will lament the Bruins’ loss to Miami more than anyone, understandably, but bring it up to an Arizona supporter and they'll be almost as inconsolable. Had UCLA played for the national championship, UA would have gone to the Rose Bowl in a milestone the program still hasn’t reached.
Losing to UCLA presumably buried any hope of the Wildcats making a case for the plus-one, but beating Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl and a round of chaos on Jan. 1 may have provided a glimmer of hope.
Dec. 5, 1998 is an absolutely incredible Saturday — so much so, it deserves its own deep dive. One of the goals on my Patreon is an extensive look at that historic day. For those who are already subscribers, think the 1994 “Whammy in Miami” deep dive only encompassing more programs and games.
An upcoming project you’ll see here on The Press Break: I catalogued an assortment of national media using their platforms to undermine Cincinnati’s case for a Playoff berth, a great deal of which was couched in pro-Ohio State sentiment.
Seriously, become a Patreon subscriber and make this Dec. 5 project happen.
Corrected from previous version mislabeled as McAllister. The extra L is for the L I just took.